My father was not an

My father was not an intellectual, but he was an extremely thoughtful man. He used to tell me the things he was grateful for and in retrospect I can see he thought about it a lot. He frequently said that the three things he was most grateful for were: 1) that his grandfather didn’t miss the boat from Russia to the United States, 2) that when he arrived in New York he kept traveling until he reached Minnesota, and 3) that his father was born before he was…As Memorial Day arrives this year I think of the things we have to remember to be grateful for as Americans, the incredible amount of blood, sacrifice, and heroism that have been necessary to bring us to this day as free men in a country unique in the annals of world history…founded on certain self evident truths rather than on ties of family and tribe. Can we rise to meet the challenge we now face not only on the battlefield, but inside our country where the principles on which our government is founded remain under unremitting attack? The intellectual challenge is certainly as daunting as any other the present circumstances now present us with.